Juan de Onate

Juan de Onate y Salazar (1550-3 June 1626) was a Spanish conquistador and the Governor of New Mexico from November 1598 to 18 April 1608, preceding Cristobal de Onate y Tolosa. He was eventually banished from New Mexico for use of excessive force in the Acoma massacre.

Biography
Juan de Onate y Salazar was born in Zacatecas, New Spain in 1550 to a family of Spanish-Basque colonists and silver mine owners; his father Cristobal de Onate was a conquistador, while his mother was descended from a family of Jewish conversos. He married the granddaughter of Hernan Cortes and Moctezuma, and, in 1595, King Philip II of Spain's viceroy Luis de Velsaco assigned Onate to lead an expedition into the unexplored lands of New Mexico. He founded the province of Santa Fe in 1598 and became the new colony's first governor, and, that same year, his men committed the Acoma massacre after Onate's nephew and 10 other Spanish soldiers were killed in a skirmish with the Acoma Pueblo. In 1601, he undertook an expedition to the Great Plains, but he returned to San Juan de los Caballeros when all he found were hostile Native Americans. In 1604, he launched an expedition to the lower Colorado River, the only expedition to the region between 1540 and 1701. In 1606, he was recalled to Mexico City for a hearing regarding his conduct against the Acoma, and he was banished from New Mexico for life and exiled from Mexico City for 5 years. He died in Spain in 1626, and he was nicknamed "the Last Conquistador".